Editors' Note: Rachel Stern is a summer 2008 Prospect editorial intern.
About eight high school girls in one blue-collar Massachusetts townhave made--and kept--a pact to become pregnant together, accordingto this piece in Time. Author Kathleen Kingsbury assembles some viable explanations to this startling statistic: lack of contraception, low self-esteem and even the supposed glam surrounding fictionalized pregnant teens, i.e. Juno. But the following? Really?
"The high school has done perhaps too good a job ofembracing young mothers. Sex-ed classes end freshman year atGloucester, where teen parents are encouraged to take their childrento a free on-site day-care center. Strollers mingle seamlessly inschool hallways among cheerleaders and junior ROTC. 'We're proud tohelp the mothers stay in school,' says Sue Todd, CEO of Pathways for Children, which runs the day-care center."
And you should be, Sue. Not offering baby care support in hopes thatit will prevent teens from becoming pregnant in the first place isalmost as idiotic as high schools who refrain from offering sex-ed with the same aims in mind. And are there any high schools that offer sex-ed after freshman year? It seems like the problem here has deeper roots.
--Rachel Stern
